‘Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe’

It’s Santa Ana season. The winds were howling while we dodged fallen palm fronds on the way into work this morning. Schools are closed for a “wind day” and the lights were out at LAX last night.

Here’s a picture of downed lines outside Which Way, LA? listener Doug Osborne’s house. He says two trees fell.

Here’s my favorite Santa Ana quote:

Los Angeles weather is the weather of catastrophe, of apocalypse, and, just as the reliably long and bitter winters of New England determine the way life is lived there, so the violence and the unpredictability of the Santa Ana affect the entire quality of life in Los Angeles, accentuate its impermanence, its unreliability. The wind shows us how close to the edge we are. – Joan Didion “Los Angeles Notebook”

UPDATE: I was wondering what other literary references there are to the Santa Anas. Here’s one response via Twitter:

@WitnessLA says: This may be too late, but Randy Newman in “I Love LA,” Bret Easton Ellis in “Less Than Zero.”